"I say just lock all the fighters in the gym and come back in an hour and see who is still standing, then hand him a trophy."

ahh yes, there can be only one.

i've competed in ippon kumite 3 times now and it has good and bad points as well. i like its focus on (im sorry in advance for saying this) the finishing blow, but i hate how the judges fail to recoginize anything other then a straight punch or kick. having a someone else call weather or not your attack was "good" can be frustrating as hell, theres only one real test for that. but no one wants to attend his classes.

I've competed in continuous point sparring, point-stop sparring and full contact. I did point-stop sparring a lot when i first started MA and i found it left me with quite a few bad habits when i started continuous point sparring. I've only had one full contact fight and although it didnt go too well i learnt so much from it and i think i have the bug now because i cant wait to have another one.

I agree with some of Kimo's points. In fact, if you actually look at the rules of some of the tourneys it falls in line with what makes a good technique. For example I have been to point tournaments that do not necessarily penalize for dropping your opponent with a proper techinque. For example, just look at the rules in many open class tournaments about head shots. Light contact to the face and you are disqualified for causing redness/swelling and blood. That's fine, because in a real fight a broken/bloody nose, bloody lip, black eye, etc. will not stop a fight and you may pay for it on the counter attack. However, you can go harder to the sides of the head as long as you don't cause the head to "rock" back and forth. Shots to the temple and jaw can be utilized with proper technique to cause knockouts and drop you opponent without a rocking back of your opponent's head. Therefore, this may not necessarily be against the rules. Similar things can be found in many of the tourney rules to circumvent what may appear to be fouls but is actually good karate. Just look. Its really about what you want to gain from the activity.

We do a progression of all these. Normal sparring night is continuous med. contact sparring. All contact allowed except sweeps to the front of the leg/knee and no face... head is all good. As you gain some experience the instructors will let the higher belts or lower belts with good technique to go harder and face allowed if mutually agreed by the two fighting.

At our toureys is point stop for all color belts. So, we do sometime train that in sparring class, but not much. Black belt tourney is continuous point for 3-5 minutes depending on how GM feels about the crop of would be's fighting. Black belts are allowed to mix it up at their discretion. We're all brothers after all. Only strikes to the knees or back of the head or groin are really out of bounds for obvious reasons.

_________________________
There are no PERFECT techniques, only perfect execution for the situation at hand.
~Corwin

I half wrote a reply to this but accidently closed it ROAR how annoying but I like this question as I've been pondering for a long time now; seeing this thread as made me realise somethings. Part of my college course is to design and create moving-image, the 'thousand word' idea about photograph has always intrigued me as I thought it would be great to achieve that with moving-image/film. I see point sparring as photography in a sense, and moving-image as full contact sparring.

I've never competed in full contact but have fought in inter-dojo point sparring comps. I find that point sparring is like chess, and every time I participate full-contact it does not feel so much like chess. I am now thinking that this is because I am not experience enough with full-contact sparring to see it as a much more prolonged version of chess, where a player may get 1 or more moves. As you may be able to tell I'm finding this very hard to discribe haha but I believe there are a lot of values in point sparring, and full contact. I used to think very tactically about point-sparring and I do find this quite enjoyable. Point-sparring is just one of many extensions of the sport/art which is MA and like many things does not need follow realism. You coul look at point-sparring to represent the idea that 1 point scored could mean your death; to prevent that point being scored on you can be a very difficult, very challenging and altogether very satisfying thing.

I compete in sport point tournaments regularly (non-continuous). I'd like to try continuous--when we spar in class we do it that way, with, at most, an acknowledgement and glove tap after an obvious point. I like being able to go long enough to develop a rhythm. But sport point is fine with me; though I've found that the definitions of "light to moderate contact" and "good karate technique" vary tremendously from judge to judge. Since most of the tournaments I go to are sanctioned by an organization that encompasses a multitude of styles, that's not surprising, though. And I figure it's a good learning experience to have to adjust, anyway. <G>

One person commented about sport point matches being a balance contest, with competitors balancing on one leg waiting to kick their opponents away. I've fought some women who try that, but haven't found it to be an especially effective strategy against a more versatile fighter.

The thing I least like to see in competition is when people drop all pretense of technique and just start brawling. I haven't seen this in intermediate or above, just in the beginner divisions, but it's still disappointing. It makes me wonder if the competitors are just so terrified that they lose all control of their bodies.

I agree with the poster that said it depends on the organizer and the judges. The last point sparring tournament I attended changed the rules from "light contact" to "no contact, only controlled strikes" because two competitors got mildly heated at each other and fought a little hard. It was a complete waste of money and all the competitors in the division was annoyed.

On the other hand, I attended a tournament in South Carolina where the only taboo part of the body was the front of the face and back of the head. The sides of the head were live, making the only real illegal technique a straight punch to the face. Even though it was point-stop sparring, I felt the intensity of the fight.

I for one am used to leaving the dojo bruised from point sparring. We usually start a sparring session with point-stop sparring to refine and hone technique under pressure. We don't even count points unless the session is geared toward tournament sparring. We then transition into continuous full impact sparring where we really don't pull our techniques. A lot of people usually sit this part of the session out.

I compete in [and judge at] competitions fought under a form of semi-contact continuous rules. The actual level of contact can vary a fair bit between weight categories. We wear shoes, and fairly minimal protective gear, so controlled contact can still sting a bit.

I find that's about as hard a level of contact as I'd want to participate in regularly. As a super-heavyweight 'controlled' contact works out as 'contact hard enough to leave pretty nasty bruises but unlikely to do serious injury', and that's fine for me. I've done a little full-contact sparring in the past [boxing], and while it was fine as an occasional thing, I wouldn't want to be doing it regularly.

I don't really see what competing full-contact would really add for me. Or at least I can't see the benefits being great enough to persuade me to do it regularly.